Headscratchers / Death on the Nile

• Why was Jacqueline allowed run of the boat after (not really) shooting Simon? As far as the investigators and passengers knew, even though the shot was nonlethal and she was immediately regretful, she still shot a man. She should have been detained for the rest of the trip. Yet they let her roam freely and passengers didn't seem to care. For instance, one time she sat giggling with Rosaline over lipstick, and this is after Rosaline knew or at least heard that she'd recently shot a man.
  • Under the circumstances, it appears that she shot Simon while drunk, emotionally distraught, and with a motive that almost everyone, even Poirot himself, thought was not entirely without sympathy or merit (the man had — apparently — coldly abandoned her for another woman). While she probably should have been detained regardless, this — coupled with the fact that Simon didn't die and Jacqueline showed remorse, as mentioned — probably led everyone to believe that it was a one-off crime of passion and wasn't likely to happen again, and that Jacqueline would pose no threat to anyone else as long as they kept her away from either Simon, a weapon and/or booze, so they could afford to be lenient. In short, sympathy coupled with sloppiness.
  • Because Simon, the victim, shows no desire that he wants to press charges against her. In fact, he wants to keep the whole affair as hush-hush as possible. So if he doesn't mind Jackie going free, then none of the others have cause to detain her, so long as she no longer has a gun (as far as they know).
  • Jackie makes a good show of apologising the next day and seeming like a pitiful figure - especially as the melodramatic J written on the wall makes it look very much like she's being framed. So they seem to compromise at leaving her to her own devices, as long as she stays away from Simon.
  • They might have, if there hadn't also been a murder that same night. That has a way of making other offenses seem unimportant and not worth bothering with.
• Why did the murderer plant the nail-polish bottle with red ink in it back in Linnet's room, rather than just throwing it (along with the gun, stole etc.) into the Nile where the last vestiges of red ink could be washed away, depriving Poirot of a vital clue?
  • They might have worried that the absence of the nail polish might have looked more suspicious than if it was there; a vain woman like Linnet would be expected to have some, only the murderer would get rid of it, and why would the murderer get rid of a bottle of nail polish unless it was of importance? If it's there, however, then why would any investigators be prompted to examine a bottle of nail polish? It also has to be remembered that these aren't exactly criminal masterminds here; one of the murderers explicitly states that she mainly agreed to help because she knew the other one would completely mess it up, and while she's cleverer it's not like she's got ample experience in murder either. Ultimately it's probably a combination of inexperience, over-thinking/confidence/nerves, and the simple fact that a Fair-Play Whodunnit without any clues because the murderer was savvy enough to rid of them all wouldn't be any fun to read.
  • The same person also smeared a J on the wall in Linnet's blood in an attempt to create a Red Herring - so clearly not a criminal mastermind.
  • That was actually a pretty sound idea. As the Troper above says, the nail-polish bottle is far more suspicious than all the other things, since it's a far weirder item than just a few bits of fabric, which may be easily explained away as stuff used to wrap up the parcel together with the heavy ashtray for sinking. This particular action shows that the criminal thought about what would happen if the river bottom gets dredged and planned to separate the most incriminating bit of evidence from the rest, since all the other stuff doesn't really point at one particular person as much as this one item, viewed in the right light, could. Hiding it in the most innocent place is a great idea, and personally, I always thought it rather a stretch that Poirot examined the bottles at all, colour discrepancy or no.
• Why would you bother murdering someone when you know full well that there's a world-famous detective nearby? They should have just postponed the murder. It's not like they had any particular reason to rush.
  • Well, one of the murderers is clearly described as impatient, over-confident and impulsive, and the other one outright states that they only got involved because they were afraid the other would completely mess it up without them, so there's that. But, look, ultimately this one is just Anthropic Principle. If you want to read a murder mystery, you need at least two things: a murder, and a detective to solve it. The murder has to happen, and the detective has to be in sufficiently close proximity in order to solve it. Ergo, the murderers have to gamble that they can commit the murder without being caught by the detective. Otherwise the book you have just read is not called Death On The Nile, it's called Hercule Poirot Takes A Pleasant Cruise Down The Nile Where Nothing Particularly Exciting Happens. Rule Of You Want To Read A Murder Mystery? Then Just Go With It, basically.
  • And maybe they thought that murdering Linnet on a boat with a dozen other suspect on board was better than doing so in her home, where her husband and ex friend would immediately fall under suspicion. And in real life, there are some murders that never get solved. Shows like CSI greatly simplify down the process for the sake of entertainment, so even a world class detective would feasibly be wrong or not solve a case once in a while - so maybe Simon and Jackie are just cocky enough to think they'll be the exception.
• What makes Simon and Jacqueline think that their plan will work? (Jacqueline in particular; she's supposed to be the smart one.) It relies on several uncontrollable factors: 1) That the witnesses to Simon's fake shooting won't scream bloody murder when it happens, thus rousing a horde of additional witnesses who will make the murder impossible (and will likely notice that Simon was not actually shot), 2) That the witnesses to the fake shooting will actually leave Simon alone long enough for him to commit the murder (instead of, say, at least one person insisting that they remain at his side to bandage his wound or whatnot), and 3) That Simon can reliably shoot himself in the leg without accidentally killing himself. Why would Jacqueline concoct a plan where her beloved Simon necessarily takes a bullet, and thus runs the risk of death?
  • It is clearly established, remember, that these two are not exactly criminal masterminds; one of them is outright stated to be impulsive and bad at planning, and the other also outright states that they mainly got involved primarily to prevent the first one from fucking things up even worse. The fact that neither of these two is exactly the Napoleon of Crime should perhaps not be a massive surprise. Basically, a combination of it being the best they could come up with and a run of not-terrible luck. And remember also that a key plot point is that there was a witness that neither of them expected, who ended up derailing things even further.
  • As for why Simon had to get a bullet in the leg... to make it look convincing and to throw suspicion off him. The first person anyone would suspect in the murder of a rich newly-married woman would be her poorer husband; ergo, shooting him in the leg is a convincing way of throwing suspicion off him, since his alibi is that he was busy getting shot at the time. It prevents anyone from looking too closely at what he was doing at the time of the murder, since any investigators would just assume he was busy trying not to bleed to death and not look any further. Jacqueline doesn't have to like it for it to be a compelling form of distraction.
  • Don't forget that Simon was also shot with the full knowledge that a doctor was nearby, meaning that they knew they'd be able to get medical assistance to him immediately. If they're in the mindset to concoct an elaborate plan to stage a Love Triangle that leads to murder, then taking a bullet for the sake of the con is only another logical step.
  • The part about the witnesses agreeing to leave Simon alone for a few minutes wasn't that crazy if you think about it. There were only two witnesses to the fake shooting: Jim Fanthorp and Cornelia. Both of them young people and more likely to follow Simon's instructions than question them during an emergency. His instructions were also logical: one of them needs to find Dr. Bessner, while the other needs to stay with Jacqueline (who's acting hysterical and suicidal) and take her to the nurse's cabin. The only part that they might have questioned was to alert no one and don't let anyone else know it until the situation is under control. Even then, though, when a wounded man is urging you to do as he says and quickly, you're very likely to do it first and ask questions later.
  • As far as the first two points go, if Simon isn't able to get time alone to murder Linnet ... well, then they just don't do the murder. At that point, they've done nothing more illegal than staging a fairly alarming prank; they'd be in no real trouble. The odds of success may not have been great, but the consequences of failure (at the phase of the plan) were slight.
    • If it's revealed that Simon's in cahoots with Jacqueline (even if just for a "prank"), however, he can only say goodbye to Linnet's riches.
• In the beginning, Jacqueline is actively stalking Linnet and Simon (with Simon's consent, but that's a secret), has threatened to kill them, carries a gun with her, and openly confesses all this to a well-known detective. Simon asks what can be legally done about this, and Poirot says that nothing can be done. Were there no laws against stalking in 1937?
  • Not really. Stalking, especially by a woman, was considered simply harassment in 1937, and not taken all that seriously.
  • Linnet even confirms that the threats were early on, and that Jackie has only appeared around them in public places and behaved within the bounds of etiquette since she began following them around on their honeymoon. Poirot makes a point of verifying this, suggesting that there might have been something they could take to the police if Jackie were acting hysterical and/or threatening, but as things stand she's not doing anything that would be considered more than kind of tacky and pathetic.
• If Poirot knew that Jacqueline had a second gun, why on Earth did he let her keep it? She ends up using it to murder-suicide herself and Simon, which I suppose just speeds up the execution process, but she could have just as easily used the gun to kill a bunch of innocent people. She could have shot Poirot at the end, if she'd wanted to. Either Poirot has a perfect grasp of her psychology or he's taking an absurd risk.
  • The whole point of Hercule Poirot is that he does, in fact, have a near-perfect grasp of psychology. The entire basis of the series is him using that near-perfect grasp of psychology to solve murders. So yeah, the former one.